Freelander 2 (LR2) ABS too good

Last year I had problems with the ABS stopping me from braking on slippery surfaces. The brakes work great on a dry or wet road but in snow the ABS just won’t let me put the brakes on to the extent last year I swerved off the road to void an oncoming car. (Just started snowing)

My questions are:-

1 does the terrain response alter the ABS sensitivity? and

2 If so is it safe to leave terrain response set to snow and Ice all the time?

Terrain response does alter it and you can drive round no bother in snow and ice mode

Not to sure what you mean by ABS not allowing you to put brakes on, the ABS kicks in when you push hard on the brakes: I drive in snow 6-8 months of the year and use the snow mode when we have a fresh load dumped on us, don't need to use it on the roads that have been ploughed, which are then a couple of inches of ice instead, the normal 4x4 copes well enough in those situations. Driving in snow is a different beast and I have noticed that it seems as if the car slides a bit more towards junctions when on fresh snow in snow mode, 2 things there, if I have to slam on the anchors its because i haven't been paying attention and approached to quick and secondly yep you have to push a bit harder but the ABS will kick in.

When yer brake and the wheels skid the abs activates. This gives the feeling of the car not being able to brake. It's not the abs causing this. It's the fact yer skidding on a surface with little grip. It's that feeling yer get with yer foot ont brake with the abs pulses felt through the pedal and the car struggles to slow down.

At the point when abs activates you have already lose control of the car because it doesn't have sufficient grip to slow down as it would under normal braking. Abs will try to reduce this problem but yer need to appreciate abs is not there to make yer stop. It's designed to improve directional stability when braking. It will help yer stop a bit but it's not a guarantee.

If yer ont tarmac then drive it in normal driving mode. The car will be set up to best suit this. Driving ont tarmac in grass/gravel/snow means the car int running at optimal setup fer tarmac only. The way it brakes, eggscellerates and response time of traction control is changed.

What hippo said. If the ABS comes on when driving, then you're braking harder than the grip available at the tyres. Brake earlier and less sharply, so you are giving the tyres a fighting chance to grip. Basically you want to avoid the ABS coming into play. ABS is there to help you steer, not stop.

Be aware that driving in snow requires tyres that have sufficient tread depth too. Basically anything less than 5mm of tread, really hampers the grip in snow. So if you're running on tyres below 5mm, then that's going to be reducing the braking ability massively.

Sounds like you're driving faster than the conditions allow for your vehicle and tyre setup.

If you swerved to avoid a car then I assume you also had your foot on the brakes, of so then your abs was working. Otherwise you'd have locked up the wheels and carried straight on

I think the OP needs to find a large empty carpark covered int snow and perform an emergency stop to see if his stopping distance is anywhere near the suggested x10 factor of driving ont snow.

As you say the optimal settings are far different in snow. Whenever you brake there will be a certain amount of slippage but the optimum amount will differ with road conditions. I would have thought there was a way for it to detect the reduced grip and adjust the terrain response accordingly or at least warn you to put a nappy on. Just been out in the snow and with grass/gravel/snow selected its much better, appears to turn the traction control off at low speed.

Oh I should have mentioned at first the speeds I was having problems was about 5 mph

The FL2 terrain response optimises the car dependent ont setting its set too. Just set it to what the conditions are. LR must have spent quite some time testing this to get the best out of it depending on what you set it to and the conditions it senses. Yer can turn oft the DSC (doesn't fully turn oft) if yer having problems and LR advise this as an option to help.

Does abs even work at such low speeds? It doesn't on my regular car

Before I retired I spent some time developing traction control for the motor sports industry so you would think I understood the workings and purpose of ABS. But the original question was does the terrain response alter the ABS sensitivity? and is it safe to leave it on because you don't know you need it until its too late. So come on guys lets keep on track

Hi kermit_rr it did on my FL2 much to my surprise.

That's interesting to know.
I would expect terrain response simply adjusts the sensitivity of the abs, so you get more out less slippage before it cuts in, which could mean on the wrong setting it will interfere too much. Then there's prolonged use issues.

Most cars disengages bellow a certain speed because the wheel sensors can not work with a high enough resolution at low speeds. With it set to grass/gravel/snow earlier the ABS didn't operate at low speed which is what I would expect. Think I will leave it in grass/gravel/snow until April, just hope it doesn't damage the dif's etc.

Stv123 said:

Most cars disengages bellow a certain speed because the wheel sensors can not work with a high enough resolution at low speeds. With it set to grass/gravel/snow earlier the ABS didn't operate at low speed which is what I would expect. Think I will leave it in grass/gravel/snow until April, just hope it doesn't damage the dif's etc.

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Do you spend a lot of time on snow or oft road?

The FL2 senses when it needs 4x4 and switches it on by activating the haldex as required. It also enables 4x4 when first pulling away to reduce wheel spin, then switches it oft.

As per the vid traction control becomes more sensitive in grass/gravel/snow mode. If anything it will tend to be more sensitive and enable 4x4 more often, because of this. So int theory there will be more use and therefore more wear, eggspecially ont tarmac. It also changes the eggscellerater and gear change response/mapping. So it's not just the brakes affected.

If I were you I would be more worried about making sure the haldex fluid has been changed and the filter/pump cleaned out as opposed to trying to drive in ggs mode while ont tarmac.

Gearbox, haldex and diff’s fluids all changed last year.
Think I watched that vid before I got my freelander. He doesn't speak much about the ABS and some of the remarks on the traction control contradict what you see on the video. I suspect its related to marketing.

Stv123 said:

Think I will leave it in grass/gravel/snow until April, just hope it doesn't damage the dif's

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The discovery 3 (completely different beast I know) owners handbook warns about using the correct terrain response setting for the ground being driven. It said something like, excessive transfer box clutch wear will take place if the wrong settings are used on the road, for extended periods of time.

Stv123 said:

Gearbox, haldex and diff’s fluids all changed last year.
Think I watched that vid before I got my freelander. He doesn't speak much about the ABS and some of the remarks on the traction control contradict what you see on the video. I suspect its related to marketing.

Click to expand...

Wise Freelander 2 owners change the haldex fluid every 20k miles. The filter/pump needs cleaned out every 40k miles. That gives a betterer level of protection and stops the filter from being blocked, which puts strain on the pump and failure occurs. It's worth finding out if the filter/pump on yours has been cleaned.

It's hard to film the benefits of the different terrain response options. I've tried it at 240 frames per second and it's difficult to pick out. I tried pulling away uphill anorl so the wheels had more work to do to gain grip. If yer has a rolling test rig with defined conditions it would be easier. A lot of the stuff it does like changing the eggscellerater response by making the pedal travel required much longer for the same speed... can be done yerself manually by improvising. Same fer limiting power when pulling away on snow. Ease the power in by taking yer foot oft the brake and let power be applied before yer touch the eggscellerater pedal. The other stuff like traction control response timing etc can't be manually controlled but careful driving can help the rest. At 1850kg it's a heavy lump of Freelander perfection to stop.

Is the Haldex the same as the VCU? (hydraulic coupling)